The French Act No. 2012-287 of 1 March 2012 ‘on the digital exploitation of unavailable books of the twentieth century’ created a specific compulsory collective management system for out-of-commerce books, in Articles L.134-1 to L.134-9 French intellectual property Code (‘IPC’). These new provisions were intended to allow the digitisation and reissuing of books that are…

2016 was a busy year for European copyright law. Unsurprisingly, Brexit and its potential impact on copyright in Europe and the UK was one of the most popular topics on the Kluwer Copyright Blog. Other hot topics included the much-anticipated CJEU judgment in the GS Media case and the ongoing EU copyright reform.  We provide a countdown below…

From August 8th to September 22nd 2016, the Colombian Ministry of Commerce made a public call for comments on a draft reform of the current copyright legislation. A key change that this proposal could have included was conspicuous by its absence: the parody exception. Colombian civil society has advocated for a change to this. The…

A full report of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law. The Spanish Supreme Court annulled some of the rules regulating the system of financing fair compensation for private copying through the General State Budget on the grounds that they are incompatible with EU law.  The system that had been in place until…

Recent developments on portability On November 28th 2016 the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights and Copyright Reform established by the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament issued a Report with possible amendments to the European Commission’s draft Proposal for a Regulation on ensuring the cross-border portability of online content services in the…

The Spanish Supreme Court has annulled some of the rules regulating the system of financing fair compensation for private copying through the General State Budget on the grounds that they are incompatible with EU law. The system that had been in place up until now was analysed by the CJEU through a number of questions…

As discussed in this blog post, the impact which Brexit has on the UK’s copyright regime will largely depend on the exact form that Brexit takes. Whilst copyright has remained far less harmonised across EU member states than other IP rights, one aspect of UK law which has been affected by the EU is the…

Following a referendum on 23 June 2016, 51.9% of UK voters said “yes” to Brexit. British Prime Minister Theresa May revealed earlier this month that Article 50 TEU will be triggered by March 2017, marking the beginning of the formal withdrawal process. It is hard to predict the impact of Brexit on the current copyright…

A new French Law provides that search engines using thumbnails will have to pay royalties via a compulsory collective management for the reproduction of photographs and images. The French Act No. 2016-925 of 7 July 2016 on freedom of creation, architecture and cultural heritage contains several provisions on copyright that modify the intellectual property Code…

As has by now been extensively reported, on 14th September the European Commission released its new copyright reform package. Prominent within this is its proposal for a new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. The proposal contains an array of controversial offerings, but from the perspective of this intermediary liability blogger, the most…